Towergate (Page 3)

If it's on TV, radio, or print,  and told by some idiot who gets paid according to how many people watch or read, I'm skeptical.  In fact, I don't believe any of it. 

Somewhere in the middle of all this stupidity is the truth.....but nobody will ever know what the whole of that is. 

I'm happy enough just watching people lose their minds.  The circus was NEVER this good.

That's it? We waited 6 months to find out that the FBI started a criminal investigation of Paul Manafort two years before he was ever named Trump's campaign manager? How does this validate what Trump claimed in his tweets?

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!"

"How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

He accused Obama of spying on him during the election, and he's yet to provide any evidence. A CNN report (I thought they were fake news?) that Manafort has been under FBI surveillance since 2014 doesn't really back up his accusations. Something set him off on March 4, so just throw your cards on the table already, arrest Obama, and let's all move on to bigger and better things like starting a war with North Korea. 

I like how you selectively omitted the stuff that doesn't help your cause.  Their was an investigation that led to nothing where Manafort was being tapped prior to the election, you are correct there.  However, the taps were stopped upon the conclusion of that investigation and then after he was named to Trump's team the taps were started again for no apparent reason (up to and after the election).  This is where it is very bad for team Obama.

"US investigators wiretapped former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort under secret court orders before and after the election, sources tell CNN, an extraordinary step involving a high-ranking campaign official now at the center of the Russia meddling probe. The government snooping continued into early this year, including a period when Manafort was known to talk to President Donald Trump. Some of the intelligence collected includes communications that sparked concerns among investigators that Manafort had encouraged the Russians to help with the campaign, according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Two of these sources, however, cautioned that the evidence is not conclusive." - From CNN article

Sadly you and I both know that nothing will happen to Obama or anyone on his team no matter how bad they violated the law.  Our politicians on both sides are above the law.  

Um a) that investigation is still ongoing (Manafort's home was recently raided as I recall).  b) we can speculate all day on the Internet but no one here can confirm what the FISA court did or did not issue as far as warrants go.  That's sort of the point of that court.

Nobody is going to prison.

You selectively omitted a few things as well. Such as "As Manafort took the reins as Trump campaign chairman in May, the FBI surveillance technicians were no longer listening." and "Manafort was ousted from the campaign in August. By then the FBI had noticed what counterintelligence agents thought was a series of odd connections between Trump associates and Russia. The CIA also had developed information, including from human intelligence sources, that they believed showed Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered his intelligence services to conduct a broad operation to meddle with the US election, according to current and former US officials. The FBI surveillance teams, under a new FISA warrant, began monitoring Manafort again, sources tell CNN."

Since the report doesn't give any real dates, it's not entirely clear. But it appears that the only time he wasn't under an FBI investigation was during the time he worked for Trump's campaign. Also, you say they started up again for no apparent reason. The FBI raided his house and, at least according to the NY Times, he's about to be indicted. Oh, and there was this https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html. So maybe there was a reason?

I probably shouldn't have said "for no apparent reason".  For reasons we don't know is probably a more accurate way to say it.

Here's the rub for me.  If, and I'll throw it out as an if, Obama wanted to spy on his political opponents he could simply have an "investigation" to justify secretive FISA warrants and then listen in on his political opponents.  This would obviously be a very bad thing and I'm sure we could agree upon that, if it were true.

What we do know is that there was an investigation, we also know there were wire taps involved as part of the investigation.  According to CNN the wiretaps were stopped due to lack of evidence (their inside source). 
The FBI then restarted the surveillance after obtaining a new FISA warrant and it extended into early this year.  They are not telling us exactly when that surveillance started, but their source is saying that it was part of the FBI's efforts to investigate ties between Trump campaign associates and Russian operatives, which IMHO is the biggest stinker of the whole thing.

The whole Russia collusion narrative has been proven false, it was a nothingburger from the beginning.  So, based on that we now have the Obama administration who took, in my opinion, a bogus Trumped up accusation and used it as justification to wire tap the head of his political campaign.  Even if it was done after he was fired, CNN is saying that conversations between Manafort and Trump continued well after he took office. 

Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

I'd bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!

How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!

Don't forget, we're just learning about this story which is discrediting a lot of earlier statements that were made by officials (even under oath).  In other words, there could be more.

That being said, if this is all there is and for arguments sake lets say it was driven by Obama's team for political gain, does it meet the qualifications of validating Trump's tweets?  From an english major literal standpoint I supposed not, because it would have to be Trumps actual phone that was physically tapped, but from a practical standpoint, if Manaforts phones were tapped when he was talking to Trump resulting in Trumps conversations being recorded then I'd say he was absolutely correct.  

It's no secret where I stand on most of this crap, but I'm no homer.  That being said......uh.....I have a REALLY hard time believing that President Obama or anyone else tried to get Trump on something damaging BEFORE the election.  There is not a single person in the group of "usual suspects" who thought Trump had a snowball's chance in hell of being elected President.

This is ALL looking through the rear view mirror.   Nobody was driving the car at the time it ran into the ditch and now they all want to investigate the accident. 

I doubt he was trying to get Trump but I would not be surprised at all if there was prior surveillance of Manafort, due to the Ukraine situation.  Manafort worked for Ukraine's former president for many years -- the guy the Kremlin wanted in power.  So once Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, that probably drew attention.

You can say nothing has been proven on Russia collusion, but since Mueller's investigation is ongoing, I don't think you can say it has been proven false (or true).  Otherwise he would've wrapped this up already.

ok, how about "not proven accurate" :-D 

This is probably a good prediction because in the political realm, the best way to put out a fire like this is to sacrifice someone to the sharks that are circling.

It depends on whether Mueller can keep running a tight ship and not tip his hand.  I expect we'll see a bunch of immunity deals in exchange for testimony and someone will lose at musical chairs and take the brunt of the punishment.

And then President Trump will pardon them..............the end.

If they've been loyal heh.